PHILADELPHIA — There was definitely some fight in the Devils, but it certainly wasn’t well-timed or directed at Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov.

No goaltender has been better over the last three weeks. However, given a free pass, Bryzgalov posted his third straight shutout as the fifth-place Flyers moved two points ahead of the Devils in the Eastern Conference standings with a 3-0 victory tonight at the Wells Fargo Center.

Unable to generate sufficient offensive firepower, the Devils’ four-game winning streak came to an end as Bryzgalov’s shutout streak reached 196:13.

“Seventeen shots is never enough. Our power play was really bad,” Ilya Kovalchuk said. “We have to be a little more simple, especially on that four-minute (five-on-four in the third period). We tried to be way too fancy at the blue line and turned the puck over every time.

“He’s a big guy, a good goalie. I played with him on the (Russian) national team. I know him real well. He’s a competitor. He’s here now almost a whole year, so he’s settled down and feels more comfortable. You have to put a lot of traffic if you want to score. Get him frustrated. We were shooting from the outside. I won’t take the credit away from him, but we have to play tougher.”

They played tough at times, but not at the right times.

There was Kovalchuk, who was speared by Sean Couturier at 11:47 of the second period but wound up in the penalty box himself when he slashed the Flyers center as he left the ice through the gate to the home bench.

“Yes,” Kovalchuk said, acknowledging the spear, “but it’s the referee’s job to referee and our job to play. He didn’t see it, I was frustrated and I hit the guy and got the penalty. Sometimes you have to suck it up.”

Then there was Eric Boulton, who nullified what would have been a Devils’ power play at 14:47 of the third period when he took an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“There was a delayed penalty on them and I thought we took the penalty, so I tried to stir things up with (Claude) Giroux to try and even it up,“ Boulton explained. ”We were getting the power play but I thought we were going to be down, otherwise I wouldn’t have done that. It was a mistake on my part to do that.

“Then (Scott) Hartnell came in to try to be tough when the refs were in there. The refs were already in, so that’s why he’s tough.”

The Devils managed just one shot on goal during the four-minute high-sticking penalty to Nicklas Grossman, who caught Adam Henrique in the face. They were outshot, 9-3, in the third period.

“Not nearly tough enough,” captain Zach Parise said. “Not at all, especially in the third when we needed to have a big push. Not nearly enough pressure.”

Shut out for the fourth time this season, the Devils were still very much in it when Jakub Voracek’s goal at 2:14 of the third gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead. Danny Briere centered the puck from the right corner and defenseman Adam Larsson was unable to clear it before Voracek backhanded it past Martin Brodeur.

When Boulton and Hartnell were both off, creating a four-against-four situation, the Devils pulled Brodeur very early and it resulted in an empty-net goal by Danny Briere from the right circle at 15:11.

“We had nothing going. We were down by two and it was an opportunity to create a power play,” coach Pete DeBoer explained. “I like our chances scoring five-on-four better than I do two goals six-on-five with two minutes left. It’s not a unique decision.”

The end of a frustrating night.

“You have to move on,” Brodeur suggested. “You’d take .500 home-and-home against the Flyers.”